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PLANTERS AND S L A V E S .
mind, and he associates with the term whatever he has heard or read in prose or verse concerning it in the east or in the west, in the north or in the south. He knows the strict definition of slavery, but knows not that so defined it has never permanently existed in the world. H e is told that the slave is the absolute property of his master, but knows not that really the slave is scarcely more the absolute property of his master than the master is of his slave. Of the relations between master and servant, of the pride of protecting and of the gratitude for protection given, of the daily habits of intercourse, of the sense of mutual dependence, of natural affection, and of natural kindness,—of all those nameless and infinite emotions of fear and hope and love, which though light as air itself are strong as, yea stronger than, links of iron,—of all these things which defeat the definition of slavery, and make it to be an exact lie, the inhabitant of England knows nothing. H e thinks the bondage of the West Indies a monstrous exception to the general freedom of mankind; he knows not that such has existed in every country of the earth, and does still exist in most of them. Of the slaves of Egypt, of Greece and of Rome he has read and forgotten; of the villeins of his own land perhaps he has not read; of the serfs of Russia, of Poland, of Bohemia, and of Hungary he has never heard ; of the slaves of Africa, and of the slaves of Asia he knows nothing; and the kid-